1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system. In particular, the present invention relates to an instant messaging system in a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to detecting display sharing and generating alerts automatically in an instant messaging system.
2. Description of Related Art
Instant messaging is an online chat medium, allowing users to communicate with each other and to collaborate in real-time over a network data processing system. Instant messaging is commonly used over the Internet. Instant messaging applications monitor and report the status of users that have established each other as online contacts. This information is typically presented to a user in a window. Instant messaging applications also are often used by users conducting business.
By utilizing instant messaging, business users can view each other's availability and initiate a text conversation with colleagues or customers when a desired contact becomes available. Millions of users communicate using instant messaging systems every day. With instant messaging becoming an important part of both personal and business communications, functionality and usability enhancements are important to the continued success of this type of communication tool.
Presently available instant messaging applications provide visible and/or audible alerts when receiving incoming chat messages. Examples of instant messaging applications include SameTime, a product available from International Business Machines Corporation; MSN Messenger, a product available from Microsoft Corporation; Yahoo! Messenger, a product available from Yahoo! Inc.; and AOL Instant Messenger, a product available from American Online.
However, these alerts may become a nuisance for users. Particularly, for users who share their display with other participants, these unanticipated alerts become a concern based on many reasons. Users may share their display either physically or electronically over the network with other participants to conduct meetings.
One of the reasons is that visible or pop-up alerts from an incoming instant message may contain personal, non-professional, or private information. A visible or pop-up alert allows those who share the display to view the content of incoming instant messages. This causes a leak of private or personal information and distraction for those who participate.
Even in situations where specific applications instead of the whole display are shared, the appearance of a visible or pop-up alert is distracting and breaks presentation flow. For example, display-sharing applications, such as NetMeeting, a product available from Microsoft Corporation, may show a grey box to meeting participants when a visible or pop-up alert is displayed. Even though no private or personal information is leaked, the grey box still causes distractions to meeting participants and breaks presentation flow.
To alleviate this problem, most instant messaging applications allow users to disable the application or set the status of the application to block incoming messages. However, this solution is not always effective, because some users may still require the instant messaging application to run in order to communicate with other participants. Other participants may also rely on the instant messaging application to provide connection information.
Another reason that visible or pop-up alerts are a concern is that some users may prefer to stay reachable via the instant messaging application while sharing their display. Currently, these users may change their instant messaging status to “away” and display an alert message to senders that other participants may view the content of the instant message they are about to send. However, this solution is also not always effective, because users may forget to change their status before sharing their display or senders may ignore or fail to see the status message altogether.
Furthermore, a private list may be created by a user in instant messaging applications to allow certain contacts to see the status of the user as “online”. While this solution may reduce the likelihood of visible or pop-up alerts by filtering out public contacts, this solution cannot eliminate the problem, since those in the private list are the ones who will most likely send messages. In addition, the maintenance of a unique private list for each sharing may become a burden for the user.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method, apparatus, and computer instructions for automatically detecting display sharing and generating alerts in an instant messaging system.